Web Publishers Talk to Congress About Online Ads

By Rogers Cadenhead

Monday, June 14, 2010 at 09:54 AM

I'm in Woodbridge, Va., this morning about to head out to the Long Tail Alliance Fly-In, a gathering of small web publishers organized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Google. As a publisher who uses context-based advertising on the Drudge Retort and other sites, I was invited to come to DC and meet with members of Congress to talk about why this form of advertising is important to online media.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has concerns that Congress is working on regulations that would kick this form of advertising in the fiddly parts:

Political campaigns have been launched at the federal and state levels to seek government regulation of many of the core processes and technologies that support interactive advertising. The IAB believes a disproportionately negative impact would be felt by small publishers whose advertising sales are largely or entirely managed by ad networks. This would affect advertising revenues and potentially diminish the diversity of voices and ideas on this most diverse of communications media.

I'll be liveblogging the event on Twitter using hashtag #iabdc. Follow me on Twitter to live this adventure in real time.

I don't know yet who I'll be meeting (Michelle Bachmann! Michelle Bachmann! Michelle Bachmann!). As the publisher of a liberal-leaning web site that calls itself "Red Meat for Yellow Dogs," it could be amusingly awkward if I get some conservative Republicans.

Then again, I'm here on my own dime trying to keep my bidness free of government regulation. So I'm practically speaking Republican already.